


Freakshow

by sister_wolf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-27
Updated: 2006-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-12 03:47:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/120407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_wolf/pseuds/sister_wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Freakshow, with Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy," Sam read, his forehead crinkling.  "What is this, a band tee-shirt or something?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Freakshow

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "Dean, Freakshow, Dog" for [](http://tikiberry.livejournal.com/profile)[**tikiberry**](http://tikiberry.livejournal.com/). Thanks to my beta, [](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/profile)[**dotfic**](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/)!

"Hey, can I borrow a tee-shirt from you?" Sam asked, dropping his towel on the floor and giving his jeans a quick sniff-test before pulling them on. "All of mine are covered in hodag blood and thunderbird crap. Man, what is _with_ Wisconsin, anyway?"

Dean, stretched out on one of the beds with a beer in one hand and the TV remote in the other, waved the remote at Sam lazily. "Sure, no problem. I think the stuff at the bottom of my duffle is, uh. Mostly clean, anyway."

Sam made a face. "Dude, we have _got_ to do laundry soon. I think my laundry bag is gonna grow legs and walk right outta here one of these days..."

Taking another swig of his beer, Dean tuned his little brother out. The secret to surviving on the road was developing the ability to completely ignore each other at will. Fighting the things that go bump in the night was the easy part; the tough part was living in extremely close quarters day in and day out without killing each other. Sam might complain about Dean's music—a _lot_ —but it did help keep them from driving each other completely insane when they were stuck together in the car for twelve hours at a time.

Plus, Dean had a sneaking suspicion that Sam didn't hate his music _quite_ as much as he claimed. He'd actually caught Sam singing along under his breath to "Dancing Days" the other day. Dean hadn't even teased him about it, because he was an awesome brother. (And because he was saving up the heavy-duty mocking for the day he could catch Sam singing along to something _really_ embarrassing, like ELO.)

"Freakshow?"

"What?" Dean asked, genuinely confused for a second, until he looked away from the TV and saw what Sam was holding out in front of himself. A black tee-shirt with a cheaply printed logo that was still perfectly crisp and clear, even ten years later. He'd never worn it, not even once.

"Freakshow, with Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy," Sam read, his forehead crinkling. "What is this, a band tee-shirt or something?"

"Something like that. Listen, that's not even gonna fit you. Grab one of the khaki tees or something." Dean relaxed a little as Sam dropped the Freakshow shirt back in the duffle and pulled on one of the Army surplus tee-shirts.

Unfortunately, Sam had always possessed more than his fair share of that irritating younger-sibling radar for picking up on things that Dean didn't want to discuss. "That's weird—I've never seen you wear this," Sam said, picking the Freakshow shirt up again before sitting down on the other bed.

"It's just one of those things that ends up at the bottom of your duffle. Eventually it's been there so long that you don't even remember that you have it anymore. Kind of like Polie Bear," Dean added, hoping to embarrass Sam into dropping the subject of the shirt. Polie Bear was the beaten-up, misshapen, gray with age, stuffed polar bear that Sam had dragged everywhere with him when he was a kid. Dean knew for a fact that Polie Bear was still hidden at the bottom of Sam's duffle bag.

Sam turned slightly pink but refused to take the bait. "So it's something with sentimental value, like Polie Bear. Okay, so... was it _your_ band? That's it, isn't it," he said gleefully. "You were Jo-Jo the Dog Faced Boy!"

Dean glared at him. That's it. Next chance Dean had, Sam was getting foaming sugar in his coffee _and_ the exploding ink pen when he least expected it. Screw their no-prank truce. "That was just the, y'know. The tag-line for the band. It didn't mean anything. And I was _not_ the Dog-Faced Boy."

"I don't remember you ever being in a band," Sam said, leaning forward and looking inquisitive. _Dammit,_ Dean thought, _He really would've made a good lawyer. He's like a fucking bulldog; once he gets his teeth into something, there's no way in hell he'll let go._

"It was just for a couple of months. Just a stupid cover band," Dean said, resigning himself to at least giving Sam the basic story. "They're a dime a dozen. Every idiot who can pick out 'Stairway to Heaven' on the guitar thinks he's the next Jimmy Page."

"When was this?"

"Junior year. We were living in Iowa City, remember? Anyway, it was just me and some high school buddies." And Maggie. Damn, he hadn't thought about Maggie in _years_.

She'd heard that they were looking for a keyboard player and just showed up one day at their practice after school, carrying her synthesizer. Pretty brunette with a look on her face that said they'd _better_ take her seriously or else they'd fucking regret it. She played the organ solo from "Light My Fire" as her try-out and completely blew them away. They hadn't even needed to vote on it; she was part of the band, just like that.

And even though Dean knew that _every_ stupid garage band thought that they'd be the ones to make it big, and that 99.9% of them were deluding themselves, he still thought that Freakshow could have made it. Dean's voice was okay, decent but nothing to write home about, but he knew how to work a crowd. He had stage presence, which in a lead singer was almost more important than whether or not he could sing. Maggie was a fucking amazing keyboard player, Jim was a decent guitarist, and Dennis was some kind of idiot savant drummer, able to keep the beat even when he was so stoned that he could barely even remember his own name. They really could've _been_ something.

"So why didn't I ever hear about this?"

Realizing that he'd been staring into space for a few minutes, Dean covered up his distraction by swigging the rest of his beer and putting the empty bottle down on the nightstand with a satisfied belch. "Dude, you were _twelve_. If it didn't involve spaceships or dinosaurs, you really didn't notice much. Anyway, like I said, it was just for a couple of months."

"Why'd you quit?" Sam had that thoughtful, worried expression on his face again. Someday, his face was just gonna stick that way.

"The band broke up," Dean lied with a straight face. "Creative differences. The guitarist called Metallica a bunch of no-talent hacks and I punched him in the face." Which was _true_ , except that it hadn't been the reason that Dean had left the band.

 _"You've got a responsibility to this family," Dad said, looking angry and, even worse, disappointed. Anger, Dean could deal with; Dad being disappointed in him made Dean feel like his insides were being hollowed out with a rusty spoon. "You can't be running off whenever you feel like it, leaving Sammy unprotected, just so you can play at being a rockstar. I thought you were smarter than this, Dean. I thought you knew better."_

"So, no big deal," Dean said, ignoring the way that his stomach still twisted every time he thought about that conversation. "I got a couple of interesting stories and an ugly tee-shirt out of it, anyway."

Maggie had basically chucked the tee-shirt straight at his face the next time she saw him at school. He hadn't even known she was getting the shirts made. She'd been planning them as a surprise for Freakshow's first (non-paying, of course) gig. The two weeks it took for Maggie to talk to him again were two of the longest weeks of his young life. And not just because it meant a sudden stop to the "benefits" part of "friends with benefits," either.

Eventually, though, she forgave him... just in time for Dad to decide that it was time for them to leave town permanently, overnight. The part of Dean that _wasn't_ always John Winchester's good soldier (no matter _what_ Sam thought) couldn't help but wonder whether their suddenly pulling up stakes had as much to do with the back rent they owed as it did with the rumored argropelter attacks in Oregon.

He wondered what had ever happened to Maggie. Probably married with two kids and a dog, living the white picket-fence life, and totally wasting her talent. Not that Dean sang at all these days either, unless you counted singing along to the radio.

"So what did you play? Guitar, bass, drums? I didn't even know you played an instrument." Dean didn't quite get why Sam was so curious about this. So he'd been in a garage band for a couple of months ten years ago. Big deal.

"Lead vocals." Back then, he'd figured that as the band started to get more and more popular, girls would start to faint over him and throw him their panties and stuff. That would have been _awesome_. He totally could have had groupies.

" _You_ sang?" Sam looked skeptical.

" _Yes_ , I sang. What the hell, dude, you hear me sing in the car all the time. You know I can sing," Dean protested, feeling insulted.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yeah, to Metallica and Black Sabbath, big deal." Sometimes Dean wondered where he'd gone wrong in raising a kid brother with such pathetic taste in music. "Okay, so you said it was a cover band, right? Tell me you weren't doing Metallica covers."

"No. Not that there would be anything _wrong_ with that, you freak," Dean said, opening another beer and pitching the cap at Sam's head. Sam batted it aside without even blinking. "We did Doors covers."

"Seriously? Like, 'Riders On the Storm,' 'People Are Strange,' that kind of thing? That's cool." Sam stole one of Dean's beers and popped the cap off with the edge of the nightstand. Sitting with his back against the headboard, he pulled the laptop up onto the bed and flipped the lid open, hitting the power button and calmly waiting for the machine to load.

Dean eyed him warily, not trusting that Sam was done mocking him yet. Sure enough, a few minutes later, Sam said casually, "Hey, that bar down the street—I think tonight's their karaoke night. I bet if I tell them that you used to sing in a Doors cover band, they'd _insist_ that you come on up and sing."

"Shut up, alt-rock boy."

Sam snickered, and muttered something that sounded an awful lot like, "Dog-faced boy."

Okay, whatever. Dean wasn't worried. Because if Sam did? Forget itching powder and exploding pens. Dean was pulling out the big guns: he was going to find the pushiest broad in the place and convince her that Sam desperately wanted to sing a duet with her.

Maybe he'd suggest something by Meat Loaf...

Nah, he wasn't _that_ cruel.


End file.
